


The Sound of Silence

by deltachye



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Reader-Insert, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-09-12 10:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9067699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltachye/pseuds/deltachye
Summary: [reader x seung-gil lee]O serpent heart, hid with a flow'ring face!Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?O nature, what hadst thou to do in hellWhen thou didst bower the spirit of a fiendIn moral paradise of such sweet flesh?— Romeo and Juliet (3.2.79-91)





	1. I - Static Change

* * *

 

My wrath is in the sharpness of my blade. My pride is my path. My lust is my flight; my gluttony is my descent; my sloth is the frigid air against my skin. My envy is the snow. My greed lies in the rush of blood in my veins.

If you had thought that Seung-gil was not a man of cold calculation, that was what you might’ve believed. But you knew him better than that.

You knew that he was a heartless sonnova.

Womens singles and mens singles were sharing the home rink today. You watched at the rink board as Seung-gil under-rotated a jump, quickly correcting by making his next jump a combination. You couldn’t help but be impressed, but the scowl on your face said otherwise.

“He thinks on his feet,” your coach sighed wistfully. “Ice dance isn’t just about expression. It requires a strong mind.”

“It seems that a mind is all he’s got,” you muttered bitterly, pushing off the rink board. Maybe that was why you disliked him so much. He was your opposite. He didn’t seem to skate for the dance—he skated for numbers on a board. When you missed a jump, your weakness was that you were screwed, because you couldn’t think fast enough to rearrange your program to fix the point loss. But your presentation score always managed to tide you over in the end.

You didn’t like the way he skated. His face always looked like it belonged to a dead man’s.

 

\---

“Elly!” you groaned as your cat hissed and snarled in your arms. She was normally well behaved, and you had no idea why she had suddenly gotten so irritated. “Elly, calm down!”

“Hah.”

The voice behind you was unfamiliar and you turned, your eyes widening with a flash when you recognized his sullen face.

“Seung-gil?!”

“What?” he asked flatly, not bothering to tug one of the black buds from his ears out of courtesy. His gaze flicked towards the cat and you didn’t miss the scorn that twitched his lips.

“Do you have a problem with my cat?” you defended quickly, hugging Elly to your chest. It was surprising enough to see Seung-gil out of the rink, and more shocking still to hear him speak. You looked down and saw a gigantic dog snarling quietly in its spot, its front paw twitching against the vet office’s tiling as if it were ready to run at you and bite you in half.

“Do you have a problem with my dog?” he replied coldly, speaking more syllables than you had heard in the half-year you had been near him.

“Not if you get away from me,” you growled, shaking your head and turning away with a haughty turn. He chuckled harshly to himself and you couldn’t help your curiosity, craning your head back to glare at him.

“ _What_?!”

“You’re slow, aren’t you? The dorms are changing. Mens singles and womens singles are rooming together because of the asbestos.”

“You’re joking,” you muttered, but you weren’t confident in yourself. “That’s…”

“Ask your coach. I just hope you don’t bring that disgusting clawed furball with you.” He eyed your precious kitten, who hissed before realizing something, shrinking away into your arms and nearly jumping off of you to get away. You held onto her tightly, shushing her as she mewled desperately.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you protested. “I’m not your roommate, I was Yuna’s—”

“Things change,” he said smarmily, in a way that seemed to be mocking you. He clicked his tongue and his dog rose to his feet, trotting alongside him after giving you another muted woof of disdain.

At the very least, he no longer looked like a corpse. Instead, he just looked like a smug asshole.


	2. II - Lonesome Company

“Have you seen this dog gif on Twitter?” your ex-roommate Yuna asked gleefully as you stretched. “It dances to any song!” Her long, intricately painted nails clacked against the phone’s glass screen as she scrolled and tapped. You hardly knew how she kept her skin glowing and her eyesight clear when all she did was sit on her damn phone. You groaned, straightening back up on the floor of the women’s change room. You looked up at her as she rested on the bench, cross-legged, her phone’s charms dangling from the gigantic bear-shaped case.

“I don’t go on social media anymore. I deleted all my apps.”

“Why?” she gasped, so horrified with the thought that she outwardly cringed. The girl was obsessed with all forms of media, and could practically predict the trending hashtags whenever you asked her. She leant in close, her eyes actually focused on you instead of the screen for once. “The season doesn’t start until next year, almost. Are you really trying so hard to focus now?”

“It’s not that,” you admitted with a shrug. “It’s because I keep seeing Seung-gil on social media, and it pissed me off.”

“Ah, Seung-gil? You got assigned with him, didn’t you?” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Isn’t he kind of cute, though? Coach always praises him so well. And he’s always so quiet and mysterious. The quiet ones are always the hottest in b—”

“Ah! Nope. Shut up right there!” you cut in, saving yourself from having to imagine the horrid thought. After all, you had to see him every morning and every night, if you were unlucky enough to cross his path. He was practically always a wall away from you. You didn’t think sharing a dorm with him would be so bad, especially since there were cordoned off bedrooms, but his damn dog had taken control of the place like some sort of third, uninvited tenant. The husky was big, furry, loud, smelly, messy—and it scared Elly to death. You saw Seung-gil around the tiny dorm often—too much, you thought—but he’d never even said anything to you. Not even a peep, save for the hateful glance. He hardly acknowledged your presence. You might as well have been living with a ghost. Maybe you could’ve been more comfortable if he’d just said “I hate you” to you, but instead, you were stuck with tense silence. A rock would’ve been more sociable. 

“Well, maybe he’s just shy. You haven’t given him a chance. All you talk about is how much you hate him, which is pretty mean of you.”

“You’re _defending_ him?” you asked, appalled and offended that she could suggest such a thing to you. You scowled at her as the both of you trotted along, balancing on your ice skates. “Haven’t you seen how he treats me?! You saw how he pushed me onto the ice yesterday, didn’t he? I almost broke my face open!”

“Playful bullying. All boys do that to the girls they like. Boys will be boys—”

“Oh, boys will be boys that will be held accountable for their actions like anybody else. He’s a horrible person! Honestly, I hate him!”

“Look, you two even have a hashtag!” She shoved her phone screen into your face, and you caught the Hangul of his and your names combined. The fans had caught wind of yours and his unfortunate living situation, and had incessantly @’d you so hard that you just about flushed your phone down the toilet to get away. You pushed her, groaning loudly.

“I think I’d rather die than even say ‘hello’ to him! He’s _such_ an asshole! If he’d go die and take his mutt of a hound with him, we’d all be much happier.”

The silence from Yuna’s big mouth was suddenly concerning and you looked up. Her expression was distractedly fearful, so you turned forwards, your heart dropping onto the cold ice as you locked eyes with Seung-gil. His bushy eyes were furrowed, a hand on the rink board as he had a foot out onto the ice. His expression was nothing more or less than the neutral scowl he always seemed to have. He cocked his head before tossing his hair haughtily, pushing himself out onto the rink. He skated away gracefully, but you knew that he’d heard your dumbass. 

“You just got caught talking smack,” Yuna whispered to you, as if you hadn’t realized how you’d screwed up. For all you knew, you’d be waking up with his mutt’s dookie in your pillowcase. Maybe worse. Maybe in your cereal, or… there were a lot of things a roommate could do to make your life miserable.

“If I die,” you said monotonously, “take care of Elly, would you?”

\---

You procrastinated on getting home for as long as you could. You took the long ways, wandered around the other floors of the dorm, and sat around until you thought it was a safe enough time for him to be asleep. Your watch read one-something in the morning.

As quietly as you could, you unlocked the door and slipped in, relocking it behind you. The fan whirred gently, and the lights were all dimmed. You tiptoed past the living room, peeking at Seung-gil’s door. No light glowed from underneath it. You breathed a sigh of relief and moved to your own room, where Elly immediately began to mewl for your attention. Seung-gil’s dog wasn’t barking away at her, making you wonder if the man were even home. Well, if you wanted to define this cramped space as ‘home’. _I’ll be gone when the asbestos problem clears up,_ you reminded yourself. The thought of leaving made you feel a bit better as you put Elly back down onto your bed, walking back out to the kitchen to fix a drink before getting to bed. 

You turned on a light, hoping that you wouldn’t wake him with it. He wouldn’t come out to yell at you for waking him up, but you still felt bad about insulting him to his face earlier. Even if you didn't like him, nobody deserved to be talked about behind their back like that. You went to the fridge before something on the table caught your eye. 

Seung-gil was meticulous, and you were careful to keep your mess inside your room’s confines, so seeing something left outside was curious. It looked to be a folded note with a package. You padded over to it carefully, wondering if you should even be peeking. But your name was scrawled across it in unfamiliar, neat handwriting. You picked up the cardstock and opened it. There was nothing written inside. You moved to the box next, pulling on the baby blue ribbon a bit warily. You swore, if you opened it up to be dog poo…

To your surprise, it wasn’t dog poo. It wasn’t even bad. There were two delicate manju balanced in a plastic box from some fancy sweets place, patterned so beautifully with a panda that you didn’t even want to eat them.

“Is this really for me…?” you muttered with amazement, checking the note again to make sure it was your name. You ran a thumb over the neatly printed letters. You noticed something in the lower corner that you’d missed the first time, and your heart practically stopped.

**-LEE.**

_Seung-gil_ had left it for _you_? But why? Last you checked, _you_ were the one who’d done him wrong, calling him an asshole to his face when he wasn’t supposed to even hear you. You rotated the box of manju in your fingers thoughtfully. Even if you had hurt his feelings, who’d go out of their way to buy treats for you? You checked the seal to make sure he hadn’t gone in and poisoned in, before stopping yourself. Why _did_ you think he was that kind of person? He’d given you a gift and you were making sure he hadn’t tampered with it. 

Maybe… he wasn’t such an asshole after all. Maybe it had been you all along

You didn’t know if he was home or not. But the note left behind on the table made you feel as if he’d actually been there, for the first time since you’d started living with him. It was kind of nice to come home to somebody other than a cat, you supposed. You smiled and popped one of the manju in your mouth. It was deliciously sweet, and you didn’t find yourself asphyxiating on toxins or poisons, so you chewed happily. As for the other one, you left it behind on the table, turning the note inside out and leaving the following message scribbled across:

**SEUNG-GIL LEE  
-[NAME].**


	3. III - Cheerful Pessimist

After that, you began to wonder if Seung-gil really was as bad as you made him out to be. 

You weren’t about to start inviting him to drinks, but you tried your best not to glower at him every time you saw him. You even said ‘hello’ and ‘good night’, and once asked if he ate. He didn’t reply and merely nodded you off with a ‘yes’, but it was progress… of some sort. Even if it were miniscule, at least it was progress.

The rooms were still being fixed, construction dragging on and on for months. Some of the more prolific Olympian athletes had gotten fed up and used their hefty salaries to relocate to apartments nearby. You weren’t big on spending, wanting to save, so you were forced to tolerate your roommate. To give him credit, Seung-gil might’ve been a ghost, but at least he was a clean ghost and took out the trash whenever you were too lazy to give it a piece of your mind. You supposed you were—dare you say—lucky to have him.

He still pissed you off whenever you saw him skate. It pained you to see somebody so expressionless in a sport that was built off of the beauty of self-expression, but you told yourself to suck it up and put on a smile. 

You watched as he skidded and fell, his skate catching from an under rotation. It looked painful, his wrist bending unnaturally as he was forced to brace himself. Wordlessly, the man got back up, not bothering to dust snow off his leg as he went to try it again.

It took you long enough to realize, but he might’ve just been good at hiding.

That night, you made him dinner. It wasn’t anything special; homemade bibimbap from leftovers. Normally, the both of you never saw each other at mealtimes, either eating out or making a dish for one. He seemed surprised when you knocked on his bedroom door, pointing over your shoulder to the shared kitchenette almost embarrassedly.

It was horrifically silent, save for the occasional clink of chopsticks. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist, seeming unbothered by the awkward lack of words. He showed no sign of enjoyment on his face, but he also hadn’t left or told you it was disgusting, so maybe you could learn to take that as an affirmative. You looked up, seeing bruising along the pale skin of his left wrist.

“Are you okay?” you asked, after building up the bravery to speak. He glanced up and then down at his hand, slowly withdrawing it to hide it under the table.

“Fine.” That seemed to be the end of that from him.

“You had a bad fall,” you continued, knowing full well what it was like to try and work on a sprain. He hadn’t seemed to hurt his feet, but it wouldn’t be good for him to not check out his injuries. You almost wondered why you were getting so worked up over him, but figured that you might as well hold onto your human dignity and be compassionate towards him, whatever your reservations. “You should tape it. Just for support.”

“It’s fine.” He continued to eat. Every now and then, he dropped a piece off to his dog, who was sitting obediently by his side. Despite your skittishness around it, the hound didn’t seem to care for you, snapping up the food contentedly. It was up to you. You sighed, understanding that he wanted you to drop it, and that you might ruin the delicate begrudging acceptance the both of you had finally come to.

“Look, Seung-Gil. If you don’t take care of yourself, you could get even more hurt—so injured that you might be taken off the roster. All of your hard work would have been for nothing. Is ten minutes of your time worth that?”

Your chastising tone was not like you, and you never would have expected that you would be scolding Seung-gil Lee of all people to take care of himself. A month ago, you would’ve celebrated, and prayed for him to bust up the rest of his parts. But you stared at him resolutely, eyebrow arched perfectly.

“…you’re a pessimist.”

“I’m a realist.”

“That says awful things in such a kind tone,” he replied wryly. He snorted derisively, but brought his hand back up to the table. His dark eyes seemed to burn through you.

“Tape it, then, if you’re so uptight about it. See if I care.”

The next morning was strange. Sleeping in a tape job wasn’t advised, so he’d undone it—but you saw him at the kitchen table, wrapping his wrist up again. The white tape was striking against his black workout outfit. He heard you come in and glanced, giving you a neutral nod before returning to his work.

“Good morning,” you said hesitantly. He did not turn around, but you heard something like a laugh.

“Can such a pessimist believe in good mornings?”

“I’m not like that!” you retorted indignantly. “Sorry for trying to be nice, then.” You felt a blush come across your face and turned to march back into your room until he left. He stopped you by standing.

“Good morning.”

You twisted around to look at him in surprise. His hand was perched on the doorknob, the door halfway propped open as he seemed to be hesitating. He also turned around, meeting your gaze for half a second before his eyes went to the ceiling.

“…thanks.”

He left soon after that. You stared at the door in disbelief. Kind words from such a reserved, emotionless person?

That pessimistic side of yours told you that it was nothing to be proud of; that he’d probably spite you a hundred times over. But the other side of you told you that this was progress on a grand scale.

In either case, you had a smile on your face.


	4. IV - Cold Passion

The day came when the dorms had finally been remodeled and finished. They were open once more, and it was finally time for you to move out. Despite eagerly awaiting this moment to come ever since hearing the dreaded news, you had suddenly become hesitant to go. Something had definitely changed about Seung-gil. If it wasn’t him, then maybe you had been the one to change, because there was something different between the both of you. Even his dog seemed to have finally taken a liking to Elly, as you had come home to find them napping together in a patch of sun on the floor of the living room. 

It was bizarre.

Perhaps in an attempt to procrastinate your packing and perhaps in an attempt to ward off the inevitable, you wandered off to the main rink, looking for something to do. The season was starting up, but today was an off day for women’s singles. You were meant to focus on rest and recuperation, but lying around in a room you’d soon be leaving wasn’t something you were interested in.

The frigid chill of the air despite being indoors was familiar and gave you some comfort. You sat down in the back bleachers, seeing a small number of press with their large cameras in the front. Your eyes gravitated towards the rink, spying Seung-gil’s easily recognizable deadpan almost immediately. So he was garnering attention after all? That was both a blessing and a curse; with widespread popularity came easy sponsorships and fans, but with fans came distractions. You doubted that Seung-gil would be pleased, but it was to be expected with his skill. And then, you wondered what you knew about him at all, if you were drawing conclusions about his life like this. Your face grew warm despite the cold.

You watched quietly as he performed a triple axel like it was nothing, the spray of snow like an exclamation point as he landed. A smattering of applause rang out from the others, but he ignored them, stopping by the rink board to talk with his coach. Your hands were still, but you nodded appreciatively to his back. You had been quick to condescension when you didn’t really know him, dismissing his stiffness for a lack of care. He was still cold to you, and still distant, but you thought that you understood him a bit better regardless. Like people speaking different languages to each other, their communication was worn down to clumsy expressions of the limited human body—and that was where your true connection to Seung-gil lay. He didn’t speak much, but the way his foot twirled, the way his body seemed to spiral in the air like fluid ribbon, the way his dark eyes gleamed like embers of coal…

He cared. He was passionate, just in a different way than you. 

Later, he arrived home, his eyes meeting yours briefly as you hauled your last box out of your bedroom. They were stacked up in the kitchen, Elly laid down on top, his husky dog wagging its fluffy tail absentmindedly as it waited obediently by the pile. He evaluated the scene quickly and nodded to you wordlessly. You watched him go, feeling a pang of disappointment that he would not even say goodbye to you as he closed his bedroom door behind him.

“Time to go,” you sighed, picking Elly up and warding her into her carrier. The small cat was the last of your belongings. The place looked no different than when you had moved in, all of your things having been shoved into your private room in repulsion of the man next door. Still, there was a changed air about the place, and you felt like you were leaving behind your childhood home yet again.

“I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I?” you whispered to Elly. Her blue eyes sparkled as she mewled, quietly. You stood, about to start hauling things back to the West Dormitories when you spotted Seung-gil lifting up one of your boxes.

“Wh-what are you doing?!” you blurted out, your mind immediately jumping to the assumption that he was thieving you on your last day. You then realized that he was staring at you expectantly, changed into clean casual clothes, his dog still sat at his feet. Its head cocked to the side, as if sternly chastising you for not expecting this to happen. 

“I’m helping you move. What else?” His voice was smooth but disgruntled, and you hastily stood, grabbing Elly’s carrier as you did.

“Oh. Um… you don’t need to do that. Thank you.”

He sighed, obviously irritated. “Look, your stuff is heavy. Let’s go already.”

Despite the blunt tone, you knew that he was stretching himself into a realm that could be considered kindness. It was something you could never have expected from the fellow skater. And yet, here he was. Biting down your cheesy grin, you nodded, picking up Elly’s carrier.

“Yeah, okay. Let’s go.”

This age and time of your awkward living arrangement with Seung-gil had ended. And yet, you came out of it the same, yet different nonetheless. Communication with Seung-gil Lee was rough around the edges, but there still seemed to be a shared comprehension between the both of you. You spotted him at your next practice, sitting far in the back, and the both of you nodded to each other wordlessly. Words didn’t seem to be needed any more. There was a bond; a connection that had been forged when you were least expecting it. It ran deeper than meaningless conversation. It was a soul-to-soul link, like stars drawn to each other.

Visits were often, and it was almost like you hadn’t moved away at all. You liked to use the rationale of giving Elly company, but he could see right through you. He saw a lot of you. It was no longer a war between technicalities and presentation; the both of you had put that aside. A duet is more powerful when opposing powers come into sync. Although you still didn’t fully understand him, you were beginning to love him. 

But that was ridiculous.


	5. V - Upward Fall

Despite all the grandeur of positive thinking and the power of motivation speeches you were subject to, you knew what it felt like to be absolutely crushed by failure. You knew what it was like to have acrid disappointment cast a darkness on you like the totality of an eclipse, and you knew what it was like to have the world crumble at your feet.

He’d leapt chasms today, but his footing had fallen flat. You couldn’t even remember what had happened. Something went wrong. In any case, Seung-gil Lee would not be advancing to the Grand Prix finals, despite all of his efforts and all of his talents. You didn’t wait for his score to be announced, and you didn’t wait to see him slowly exit the rink—you ran hard to the gates from the wings, determined to find him before he disappeared. That was the kind of person he was; he didn’t wait to get hurt, and when he did, he vanished before amends could be made. It was why forging a relationship with him had been so difficult, and it was why you hurt so badly for him in his place. 

You recognized his coach first on the television screens mounted around the arena, shaking her head in an empty Kiss-and-Cry with muted disappointment. Press would be eagerly waiting to snap up details about the failure of a skate, but the athlete was nowhere to be found. You read the subtitles, catching something about his possible retreat to his personal room. You didn’t bother heading off to those areas. Seung-gil wouldn’t go there. With an aversion to the public, he would have left to something more open, a place where nobody could have seen him weak…

The cold air burned your skin, a different ache from the exhaustion that was heavy in your lungs. Your breath was a frost cloud before you as your eyes darted from figure to figure, hungrily seeking him out. He’d thrown a dark jacket over the myriad of colours he’d displayed for his skate, and would nearly have passed you by if you did not know him so well.

“Seung-gil!”

He froze at the sound of his name. You took advantage of his hesitation and hurriedly closed the gap, putting a hand on his shoulder and slipping in front of him. Your fingers squeezed the musculature of his trembling body, holding him down so that he couldn’t run away. Twin silver streaks lined the surface of his pallid skin and he glared icily, nose reddened.

“What.”

It was emotionless. Just like when you’d first met him, he’d reverted back to caging himself in an armour of ice. If you hadn’t known him, you would have never understood that he was only throwing up a weak defense in a desperate attempt to ward evils away from his heart—but you knew him, God, you knew him best, and tears welled in your own eyes.

“I’m so sorry.”

There was nothing that you could say to him that he wanted to hear, and nothing that would make him feel better right away. He moved, hoping to shrug you off, but you took your other hand and wrapped it around his waist. You drew him to you, his face cold against your warm nape as you forced him to fall against you. His weight threw you off and you stumbled, but you supported him as best as you could, planting yourself as a pillar for him to lean on. 

“I have you,” you breathed, reassuringly in the mother tongue. Your fingers were numbed in the icy cold wind, but you ignored your own pain, closing your eyes to shoulder his. Your hand was warm against his back and you eased him, feeling the tension drain as his body grew heavier and heavier onto yours.

He didn’t say anything. Nothing much needed to be said. He cried, openly, and you shielded him from the world’s eyes. There wasn’t much else you could do, but you could only hope that it was enough for him.

Was that love? Constant sacrifice, blood and sweat and tears—you truly loved skating, for you loved art and beauty. Seung-gil found satisfaction in exponential numbers and you in your hard breathing after a spectacular show, but the both of you loved the same thing in the end. Love was a dove-feathered raven, a beautiful tyrant, a sweet tasting sorrow—and despite your best efforts, you would always be hurt. Sometimes, that pain was necessary. 

“I love you,” you whispered. “Okay?”

“…yeah.”

The faint, almost inaudible affirmation rested upon you gently like a warm blanket. With him, it was always going to be building. With him, you would always be different, and there would always be things you could not understand about him.

But you would at least know for certain that he loved you, too.

You had fallen, upwards, into a tight-snared trap of love that grew with every passing day. It carried you as you fell deeper into it. His arms were tight around you now, his face pressed against your skin, making it feel like your heart was resonating with his. Ice burns. Facts lie.

“I love you”, whispered so quietly from him, never did.

**Author's Note:**

> Elsewhere: https://goo.gl/w2ozgv


End file.
